McLaren drivers reflect on ‘strange’ Friday at Dutch GP as Norris tops both practice sessions

Lando Norris topped both practice sessions on Friday at the Dutch Grand Prix, but expects an “exciting” Saturday with the chasing pack close, and rain expected.

Norris led a McLaren 1-2 in Free Practice 1, while Fernando Alonso managed to separate him from team mate Oscar Piastri in the second session, with just 0.089s splitting the trio.

“Today was a good day. You get back into things quite quickly, so it doesn’t take too long,” said Norris.

“The car was handling quite well. I feel like we’ve made some good improvements from FP1 to FP2, but at the same time, it seemed like the others caught up a bit more than what we would like.

“Even the Aston and Fernando were quick in FP1 and FP2 and have been recently, so a good start, but certainly a bit closer than we would like for the time being.”

Adding that the Aston Martins “are never that far off in FP2,” Norris maintained that McLaren should focus on its own performance, rather than look at potential competitors.

With rain expected to fall in FP3 and, potentially, in Qualifying, Norris is cautious of how the picture could change.

“It’s still meant to rain tomorrow and there’s still a chance of rain on Sunday,” he said. “It actually would have been nice to get some wet laps in today to prepare a little bit for tomorrow, so it’ll be more exciting tomorrow.”

Piastri arrived at Zandvoort with a nine-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship, but was unable to match his team mate on Friday. After ending the day third fastest, however, he believes the true picture has been obscured by the rain which never came, as teams completed mixed run plans to protect from the threat.

“Today has been a bit strange,” said the Australian. “People didn’t know whether to use the tyres when they definitely knew it was going to be dry, or did you wait a little bit longer and take some fuel out?

“There were a lot of things that I don’t think were quite as you would normally expect today. I think tomorrow will be the only time when we see exactly where everyone is at.”